OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES General Editors Gillian Clark Andrew Louth OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi THE OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES series includes scholarly volumes on the thought and history of the early Christian centuries. Covering a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, the books are of interest to theologians, ancient historians, and specialists in the classical and Jewish worlds. Titles in the series include: The Minor Prophets as Christian Scripture in the Commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria Hauna T. Ondrey (2018) Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh Philip Michael Forness (2018) God and Christ in Irenaeus Anthony Briggman (2018) Augustine’s Early Thought on the Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement Bart van Egmond (2018) The Idea of Nicaea in the Early Church Councils, ad 431–451 Mark S. Smith (2018) The Many Deaths of Peter and Paul David L. Eastman (2019) Visions and Faces of the Tragic: The Mimesis of Tragedy and the Folly of Salvation in Early Christian Literature Paul M. Blowers (2020) Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-C entury Christian Authors Morwenna Ludlow (2020) Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature: A Cosmopolitan Anthropology from Roman Syria David Lloyd Dusenbury (2021) OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi The Acts of the Early Church Councils Production and Character THOMAS GRAUMANN 1 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Thomas Graumann 2021 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2021 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. 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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi Acknowledgements The study of church councils in the ancient world has found renewed interest and received fresh impulses over the course of the last two decades. The publication in 2016 of the final volume of the acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (ad 787), edited by Erich Lamberz, marked the conclusion of the editorial project of the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum which Eduard Schwartz had started almost exactly one hundred years previously. With it the acts and documents of the ecu- menical councils of antiquity are finally all available in modern critical editions. Simultaneously, Richard Price has published English- language translations of the great majority of these texts, and work is proceeding on the remainder. This recent availability of critical editions and modern translations has opened up the complex material to a new readership. It justifies a closer examination of the pro- cesses that created these texts and a fuller analysis of their character. It is hoped that clarification of the practical work of notaries and secretaries in the councils, and of the expectations and intentions of the bishops and imperial officers under whom they worked, may provide a helpful foundation for future study of conciliar acts by historians and theologians alike. The historical, cultural, and theological contingencies that characterize the many councils conducted over the course of more than four centuries led to a wide variety in the bureaucratic practices that produced their acts. No all- encompassing, universally followed ‘handbook’ of textual practices in these coun- cils may be reconstructed. Yet examination reveals a defined range of procedures and conventions that illuminate the work of conciliar secretariats and show the importance of the role they played. It is these that are the subject of the pre- sent study. In my work on conciliar acts and documents I have benefited from frequent discussions with doctoral and other students in Cambridge, from the critical feedback from audiences at conferences and workshops, and from the generous advice of colleagues and friends too numerous to list here individually. Among them, particular thanks are due to Rudolf Haensch (Munich), who guided me into the world of ancient papyri, and to Peter Riedlberger (Bamberg), who helped my understanding of ancient legal practice and who kindly read a draft. I had stimulating discussions with the members of the research group in Bamberg that he leads. The editors of the series and anonymous readers for the Press made helpful suggestions for improvement. Yet, above all, I owe a debt of gratitude to OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi vi Acknowledgements Richard Price (London), who generously gave up time to read the entire draft and offered most valuable comments. Parallel to working on this study, I had the add- ition al good fortune to collaborate with him on the English edition of the acts of the Council of Ephesus. It is impossible to overstate the stimulus and enlighten- ment that this provided. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi Contents Abbreviations and Conventions ix Introduction 1 PART I. THE QUEST FOR DOCUMENTATION 1. The Earliest Church Councils: A Documentary History 13 2. ‘Council Acts’ and the Variations of Conciliar Documentation and Recording Patterns 24 3. The Conference of Carthage (ad 411): An Imperial Model Case 32 Processes and Practices 33 Conflicts and Challenges 38 PART II. ‘READING’ AND ‘USING’ ACTS 4. Examining the Records: Two Inquiries into Eutyches’ Trial (ad 449) 43 Types of Text: Authentica—isa—antigrapha—schedarion 44 Visual Features: Writing and Document Hands 51 5. Original Acts and Documents at Chalcedon (ad 451) 57 Objects of Reading 59 The Codex 61 The Schedarion 64 The Council- Roll: Physicality, Practicality, Symbolism 71 6. ‘Authentic’ Documents: Visual Features, Annotation, and Administrative Handling 83 Collections 87 7. Assessing and Performing Authenticity: A View from Later Councils 92 Constantinople III (ad 680/1) 93 Nicaea II (ad 787) 103 Conclusion 109 PART III. ‘WRITING’ ACTS: THE COUNCIL’S SECRETARIAT IN ACTION 8. All the President’s Men: Administrative Aides and the ‘Official’ Secretariat 113 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi viii Contents 9. The Stenographic Protocol: Professionalism, Conventions, and Challenges 126 Exact Words? Memory, Recording, and Writing 130 What (Not) to Record: Comprehensiveness, ‘Omission’, and the Status of Utterances 138 (Don’t) Write This! Dictation, Instructions, and Appeals for Alteration 146 The Collective Voice of the Council 152 10. ‘Transferring’ Shorthand Notes to Longhand Transcript 167 PART IV. THE WRITTEN RECORD 11. The Hypomnēmata: Production and Qualities 181 Praxis tōn hypomnēmatōn 183 Pistis tōn hypomnēmatōn 192 12. Documents Incorporated–Incorporating Documents 202 Description and Identification of Documents 202 Accepting—Reading—Filing 210 Document Placement: Recitation, Composition, and Writing 214 Hierarchical Order: Imperial Letters 215 Running Order 222 Document- Reading and ‘Live’ Speech- Acts 227 Order and Argument 233 13. Abstracting and Summary Records 237 14. Collecting and Appending Signatures 243 15. The Structure and Elements of the ‘Ideal’ Session- Record and the Role of ‘Editing’ 257 PART V. FILES, COLLECTIONS, EDITIONS: DOSSIERIZATION AND DISSEMINATION 16. Council Acts Gathered and Organized: Minutes, Case Files, and Collected Records 265 The Synodus Endemousa (Constantinople, ad 448) 266 Cyril’s Council at Ephesus (ad 431) 269 17. Ancillary Documentation and the Beginnings of Dossierization 277 18. The Preparation of ‘Editions’ and the Dissemination of Documentation 283 Conclusion 297 Bibliography 309 Index 331 General Index 332 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 22/06/21, SPi Abbreviations and Conventions 1. Abbreviations Used for Councils, Synods, and Assemblies C.Aquil.(381) Concilium Aquileiense (anno 381) Coll.Carth. Collatio Carthaginiensis (anno 411) C.Ephes.(431) Concilium Universale Ephesenum (anno 431) CA Collectio Atheniensis (ACO I.1.7, pp. 17–167) CC Collectio Casinensis (ACO I.3–4) CP Collectio Palatina (ACO I.5, pp. 1–215) CQ Collectio Quesnelliana (ACO I.5, pp. 321–340) CV Collectio Vaticana (ACO I.1.1–6) CVer Collectio Veronensis (ACO I.2) CW Collectio Winteriana (ACO I.5) C.Ephes.II(449) Concilium Ephesenum Secundum (anno 449) CChalc. Concilium Chalcedonense (anno 451, but containing proceedings dating ori gin al ly from 431–451) III(ii) we number sessions after the Latin tradition (also used in Richard Price’s translation, q.v.) and add in brackets the session’s number in the Greek traditions where they differ trans. Price We reference by name only the frequently cited translation by Richard Price (see bibliography Concilium Chalecedonense).1 C.Cstpl.II(553) Concilium Universale Constantinopolitanum Secundum (anno 553) C.Cstpl.III(680–1) Concilium Universale Constantinopolitanum Tertium (anno 680–1) C.Nic.II(787) Concilium Universale Nicaenum Secundum (anno 787) 2. General Bibliographical Abbreviations Papyri are quoted following the standard abbreviations of the Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic, and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca, and Tablets, Founding Editors: John F. Oates and William H. Willis (http://papyri.info/docs/checklist) and using the editions cited there. We additionally provide the Trismegistos number (TM) as their unique identifier. 1 The translations of the acts of most ecumenical councils in the period provided by Richard Price in the Series of Translated Texts for Historians (see our Bibliography of ancient texts) are widely used for the convenience of the reader. We regularly modify them to bring out the specific concerns with document characteristics, the processes of their production, and the linguistic specificity of both in the ancient texts.